The present invention relates to a water supply system and method, and also to a water pressure reducer for use in such system and method. The invention is particularly useful for poultry houses for supplying water to a plurality of water drinkers for poultry, and is therefore described below with respect to such application.
Poultry drinkers in poultry houses are supplied by a water supply conduit extending over the poultry house floor. The floors of such poultry houses are generally built with a predetermined slope from one end to the opposite end for drainage purposes; and when the water supply conduit is suspended at the same slope over the floor so as to be parallel with the floor, the slope produces an increase in pressure along the length of the water supply conduit. This would normally produce the undesirable result of supplying water to the drinkers at the lower end of the water supply conduit at a higher flow rate than at the upper end. Such an undesirable result is generally corrected by providing pressure regulators along the length of a conduit to maintain the same pressure along its length, or a flow regulator at each of the water drinkers to maintain the same flow rate at each drinker irrespective of the water pressure thereat. However, in such installations the water is usually supplied to the poultry at different rates according to their stage of growth; i.e., at a lower rate while they are young chicks, and at an increasing rate as they grow towards maturity. When pressure or flow regulators are used, this would require readjusting the individual regulators for different rates according to the stage of growth of the poultry.